Gang Wars of the North - The Inside Story of the Deadly Battle Between Viv Graham and Lee Duffy. Stephen Richards
inspector says, “We want to have a word with Lee Harrison over fines.”
‘Duffy says, “Fuck off out of here now, before I give you it!”
‘The inspector said, “I can come back …”
‘“Come back with who you want,” intervened Duffy.
‘The man who owned the pub came in and said, “There’s fucking loads of them outside.”
‘Duffy and his friends knew if they went out and drove away that they would get pulled over, so they got a taxi. On their way along Normanby Road, all of a sudden, an unmarked squad car pulls in front of the taxi and stops and, out of the side of the road, armed police ambush them, shouting, “Get on the floor face down! Get on the floor!”
‘Everyone except Duffy gets down on the floor. He walks around saying, “Fuck getting on the floor, I’m getting on no floor. Fuck you telling me to get on the floor.”
‘One of the police officers said to the officer in charge that Duffy wouldn’t get on the floor and he was told Lee was “all right”. This was an indicator of Duffy being considered too lethal to push about.’
Many people have taken what has been said or written about Duffy as gospel. I’ve spoken to the hardest of hard throughout the UK and, up until now, all of these people, with just one exception, has turned out to be a likeable character. Why should Duffy have been any different?
Usually it is fear of something that brings out the worst in a man. Duffy had a fear of being bullied, so he got in first. If you were not a threat to him, fine. If you were not a lowlife drug dealer, fine. If you were not one of those who had bullied him from the age of six, fine. It seems that the only people who had anything to fear from him were the evil ones. Some say Duffy was evil, but they are all people who never met him.
Tommy Harrison, one of the elder statesmen of the Teesside underworld, has many memories of Duffy. ‘Lee once knocked on my door and said, “I’ve been shot. I want the bullet taken out.”
‘I said, “That’s not a bullet, it’s a shotgun wound. It’s lead shot. I can’t do it. You’ll have to go to hospital because it’ll get poisoned.” It did poison because part of his jeans had gone into his leg along with the lead shot.
‘He’d sometimes go missing for days on end up to Newcastle, at a pub called the Bay Horse. I used to have to go up and get him.
‘When the petrol was thrown over him, he just whacked the geezer before the geezer had a chance to pull a lighter out When they had the gun pointed at his belly, he just wrestled it to the floor. He was fearless, he didn’t fear anyone. How many people in Middlesbrough walk around with guns and knives? The people trying to kill him were out of the area and were paid to do him in. I couldn’t have seen anybody enticing him into a blues party so he could be killed. They’d have had to do him in. They couldn’t have just whacked him, because he’d have come back at them.
‘When I lived in North Ormesby, he used to go running every day and this day he’d been running and training. He used to run up the hills, pulling a log up with him. He came to my house and said, “Have you got anything to eat?” Eggs, sausage, bacon, liver, tomato, the lot, then he’d be off.
‘He gets round the corner and someone wants to have a pop at him. Lee smashed his jaw, clipped his cheekbone with two right-handers. How do you go and train, have a nice meal and go round the corner and see somebody that wants to have a pop at you? I don’t know how you can define that.
‘When he got into trouble at the Speakeasy, he was in there just having a drink when it was a firm from Leeds causing trouble and he was asked for a hand and they all blamed him. The others never got charged and he did. It wasn’t in his nature to be used, but it was in his nature to help you. If you were in a bit of bother he’d help you.
‘I had a bit of bother with someone and he said to me, “Where are you going?”
‘I said, “I’m going to go and fight somebody.”
‘“I’m coming too,” he replied.
‘He was barred from the town while he was on this particular condition of bail. But he’d help you straight away; he wouldn’t say, “How much are you paying me?”
‘Lee used to love going out with me. He loved it. He didn’t swear or anything like that when he was mixing with proper people. Towards the end, he started to mix with the wrong sorts of people.
‘He was going to fight Lenny [‘The Guv’nor’] McLean until he got shot. I went down to London. I had a few well known faces putting money up for all this. He was fit, he was bouncing, then he got shot in the knee! I think Lee would have had the upper hand with Lenny McLean because Lee was young and, don’t forget, he was nearly 18 stone and he could hit hard. I mean, I knew McLean and Frank Warren.
‘I was going to have a go with McLean in 1978 in the Empire Rooms, Tottenham Court Road, London. Lenny came in with young Frank Warren when they were associated with backstreet boxing. I’ve known Frank from being a kid and Ritchie Anderson. I just thought, if I were four years younger I’d have just been on the boil. Lenny wasn’t as big as that in the seventies. He was on the gear. He wasn’t as big as he was when he died.
‘I said to Frank, “If ever you want anything, then there’s my phone number,” and I said, “You’ll never spend that,” and I gave it to him on a £10 note.
‘He replied, “I’m not as bad as you. There’s my phone number,” and he gave it to me on a £20 note!
‘And Lenny McLean just sat there and we were eyeing each other up, but I don’t think McLean would have beaten Lee. I don’t think anyone could have beaten him.
‘Everybody knew Lee because every nick he went to, he battered the top man. He’d say, “Who’s the guv’nor in here?” Wallop, wallop, wallop, and he’d give him it. He just made sure they knew who he was.
‘Lee did a bit of boxing, but it’s what’s in you that counts, but boxing does help you. You have to train; a Rolls-Royce won’t run without petrol. He was powerful and he was a big hitter; if he hit you, then something would break. I said to Lee, “When you’re fighting, surprise them.” He had power and he had speed. It’s not how heavy you are, it’s the speed.
‘You could rib him and have a bit of crack with him; if he knew you, he wasn’t a bully. I loaned him and our Lee £5,000 one day and they dodged me with the repayment money. They were upstairs in the Speakeasy and they were saying, “Oh, the old man’s here!”
‘I said, “Hey, get here, I want you and I want you,” pointing at the two Lees. “Where’s that money? I want paying, you bastards, and I want the money now.”
‘They said, “We’ll get you it.”
‘I replied, “Well, I want it and don’t dodge me.”
‘We were all laughing. He could have said to me, “Shut up, you’re getting nothing.”
‘You’d have to get to know him. Outsiders couldn’t get close to him, but if he took to you he took to you and you’d get a million per cent back off him. He was no fool, you know; he was very careful whom he befriended.
‘If he was going anywhere, he’d make sure it was safe; he’d get dropped off a few streets before or be driven around the place. If he was in a taxi, he’d have somebody sitting in front of him. There was a time the police were looking for him, he was out of the back bathroom window and he was off … naked – he ripped all his leg open, but he was off like a shot.
‘There was a time he got a dodgy passport and flight tickets to go off to Spain to stay out of the road for a bit when he had some trouble. He went to Charrington’s [Brian Charrington of Teesside] garage and they blocked the garage off. Lee would take a car off you, “I’ll borrow that